The one that got away

[Rafael]

Photography is like fishing in that we all have stories about the one that got away. What is the photograph that you will always kick yourself for having missed on account of having left your camera at home that day or of not having had it ready?

For me, it was a scene at Granville Island in Vancouver. A woman appeared out of the crowd walking with her dog on one side of her and her three-year old on the other. The dog was walking free and the child was rigged up in one of those leash and harness contraptions. I will never forgive myself for missing that one!

 

[Al Patterson]

I once saw an Amish fellow in Pennsylvania at a drive-up ATM with the horse drawn buggy. I had a camera, but was out of fim.

 

[jan normandale]

Marc.. too many to remember. The lesson, always carry a small camera. I have an XA for toting around. Strangely every time I forget to put it in my pocket I regret it. Some of my best shots have been from moments you described but I had a camera.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/318867219_f30c743c18_o.jpg

 

[rogue_designer]

Reminds me of a blog I saw of photographs that he didn't take.

http://unphotographable.com/

 

[Keith]

A woman in a hardware store carpark leaning in through the driver's window of her car to get some thing and not noticing that the wind had blown her dress up and onto the roof of the car ... it was a classic scene that had far more humor in it than potential voyerism! 😱

 

[ChadHahn]

I was in the capital building in Nashville and in the basement I saw a water fountain. You could see where there used to be a water line leading to another water fountain from back in the days of segregation and white and colored water fountains.

I didn't have a camera with me but I had a title, "Gone but not Forgotten"

 

[varjag]

Oh man..

One, a man holding woman with one arm by her throat. He is furious, she looks calm, confident and smiling as Mona Lisa. I ran out of film. The last frame took a good shot, but this image still haunts me. Lesson one, take enough film.

Two, a riot police officer in line at one of crackdowns in Minsk. The troopers flanking him look concentrated and cold blooded, but he in the middle is downright frightened and covered with sweat. I went through no-mans ground and took that shoot with 35mm point blanc, but got the neg ruined by maligned film advance. Lesson two, use a camera you can trust.

Three, a really bizarre scene at a night avenue that is too explicit to describe here. This was one of the cases when I had no camera on me, now I carry one even on a trip to waste bin.

 

[Kin Lau]

A cop loading his revolver, backlit in the archway of the police station as I was walking by.

I didn't have a camera ready, and even if I did and that this was Jamaica, I'm not sure I would have taken it.

 

[Michael P.]

Two images I'll always remember:
A cop in downtown Boston holding his gun down to his side and a radio to his ear, watching toward an alley. He looked scared and apprehensive.
I came out of a bank in Quincy, MA and in front of me was a handcuffed woman face down on the trunk of a car, plastic bags of white stuff in front of her. Behind the car were several cops. A wide angel would have taken it all in. :bang:

Experiences like this are why I often carry my Rollei 35S with me.

 

[cp_ste.croix]

i was out with a friend a month or two ago and witnessed a ditraught and violent man interacting with the police, it ended with him being shot several times and dying on the street. Sometimes I wish I had my camera there if only to insulate me from events.